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A preposterous prevelance of piratical pontificating

We preface this latest entry by noting that the title is otherwise known as my attempt to write alliteration like Stan Lee, whoever’s work Stan Lee is taking the credit for, or that celebrated theatrical impresario Henry Gordon Jago.

Whilst pondering games recently, I had a realization – I’m playing in a 7th Sea tabletop and may be playing in a LARP one at some point, and am not playing pirates in either. (Also, that I’d forgotten yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day) Had you asked 25 year old me, he’d have laughed at the prospect of that, as he was a mite bit obsessed with them. Why the reason for this change? I’m not sure – it could be the perspective that comes with age, being more than slightly sick of the Hollywood pirate or wanting to have in game conversations that consisted of more than the word “Arrrr.”* I’m playing an Eisen mercenary in the tabletop (Think German Landsknecht, who’s become oddly polite as the game has continued) and the idea for the LARP is basically the Thiefmaker from The Lies of Locke Lamora, but with Londo Mollari’s acent. Yeah, I’d prefer a more original character and may well do so when/if the game rolls around, but playing someone who’s primary response to things isn’t violence is a pretty big change for me in and of itself.

It’s also the fact that I’m utterly terrible at playing villians. Try as I might, the politeness ingrained by my mother (Who, to be fair, should be nominated for Sainthood on general principle) just refuses to leave and opportunities to steal or be a jerk just fly past me in favour of being polite to old women and not offending the awakened spirit of a country.

Then comes what system? There were LARP rules published for the original system, but I’ve not read them in a long time. I’m also not a fan of using tabletop systems in LARP’s, it’s kludgy and tend to devolve into people standing around comparing stats or in endless rock paper scissors matches. My initial thought is to run it systemless and decide duels with boffer combat (With resources represented by laminated cards), but I can understand people wanting some sort of rules work, both for comparing resources and record keeping. I’m still yet to find a rules system I love unconditionally (I’d have said Hyborian Tales, who’s website is long defunct, but that’s more to my Robert E Howard fandom overcoming any bias or quibbles with the system) but I am in favour of keeping things as simple as possible.

Abrubtly chating topics, flashing back to my recent post about thieves in fantasy settings, comes this video from LARP Forge. Yes, that’s based around assassins, but the general principle matches things nicely. Yes, it is possible to be sneaky when you’re dressed like a member of Gwar, but you’ll still look fucking ridiculous to me.

In other Very Bad/Very Good news, The Bugle still hasn’t returned, but Full Frontal with Samantha Bee has! If I can’t be like Holtzmann when I grow up, then I’d happily be like Sam. The amount of gives no fucks that she’s shown in recent months has been truly heartwarming to see. Last Week Tonight may be getting the lion’s share of press, and it’s certainly worthy of no small amount of it, but for sheer righteous fury then Sam get’s my vote.**

So yeah. Not much else on. A blurb has been submitted for our MacquarieCon event, which means we need to do a lot more work on it and I’m trying to work out what animal to sacrifice for good weather Saturday, as I’m taking my new longbow down to the range for its first shooting.

*I do have fond memories of playing a pirate in a LARP *cough* years ago, my fondest memory being the look on my then-girlfriend now wife’s face when she first saw me in the outfit. Jaw, meet floor. My reaction can be summed up by this.

** For more political snark, this time local, check out Andrew P Street’s columns in the SMH online. Well worth reading.